The Prowess Demonstrated by Poet, Robert Frost - 773 Words

Poetry is a form of literature that can be interpreted in different ways by different people. When reading poems by Robert Frost he demonstrates his prowess with different types of elements by bringing it to life and giving them multiple meanings. From themes to figure of speech all the way to word choice and order, Frost demonstrates his ability to capture his audience in a way that makes them return. â€Å"The Oven Bird† by Robert Frost depicts a bird sitting on top of a tree witnessing the seasons changing. The theme of the poem is how the seasons are changing which also represents the aging and what comes from it. The narrator of the poem is detailing how change is happening in not only the environment but also in himself. With summer comes vitality and enjoyment, and with that coming to an end a sense of fulfillment is lacking. The narrator is opposed to the season changing because it also means that he will be changing. When the narrator states â€Å"And comes that oth er fall we name the fall.†(Frost 886), he demonstrates the aging that comes with seasons changing. The first fall he talks about is the fall season but the other fall is his age and life experiences. Towards the end of the poem the narrator begins to accept reality and the change that is happening around him. The last line â€Å"Is what to make of a diminished thing.† (Frost 886) shows that he is beginning to accept that his life is diminishing, and that change is something that cannot be stopped. â€Å"Fire and Ice†

Structural Functional Approach Free Essays

string(48) " I hope to present it more fully in the future\." Retrieved from: http://www. cifas. us/smith/chapters. We will write a custom essay sample on Structural Functional Approach or any similar topic only for you Order Now html Title: â€Å"A structural approach to comparative politics. † Author(s): M. G. Smith Source: In Varieties of Political Theory. David Easton, ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. p. 113-128. Reprinted in Corporations and Society. p. 91-105. FIVE M. G. SMITH University of California, Los Angeles A Structural Approach to Comparative Politics Comparative politics seeks to discover regularities and variations of political organization by comparative analysis of historical and contemporary systems. Having isolated these regularities and variations, it seeks to determine the factors which underlie them, in order to discover the properties and conditions of polities of varying types. It then seeks to reduce these observations to a series of interconnected propositions applicable to all these systems in both static and changing conditions. Hopefully, one can then enquire how these governmental processes relate to the wider milieux of which they are part. It would seem that this comparative enquiry may be pursued i~. various ways that all share the same basic strategy, but differ in emphases arid sta~ ­ ing points. Their common strategy is to abstract one aspect of political reality and develop it as a frame of reference. With this variable held constant, enquiries can seek to determine the limits within which other dimensions vary; as the value of the primary variable is changed, the forms and values of the others, separately or together, can also be investigated. Ideally, we should seek to deduce relevant hypotheses from a general body of theory, and then to check and refine them by inductive analyses of historical and ethnographic data. ActuaJ procedures vary. 113 114 / A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS Initially, we might expect anyone of four approaches to be useful in the comparative study of political systems. These four approaches use respectively the dimensions of process, content, function, and form as the bases for their conceptual frameworks. In fact, cOlIlparative studies based on process and content face insuperable obstacles due to the enormous variability of political systems. In centralized polities, the institutional processes of government are elaborately differentiated, discrete, and easy to identify. They are often the subject, as well as the source, of a more or less complex and precise body of rules which may require specialists to interpret them. In simpler societies, the corresponding processes are rarely differentiated and discrete. They normally occur within the context of institutional activities with multiple functions, and are often difficult to abstract and segregate for analysis as self-contained processual systems. Before this is possible, we need independent criteria to distinguish the governmental and nongovernmental dimensions of these institutional forms. The substantive approach rests on the category of content. By the con.. tent of a governmental system, I mean its specific substantive concerns and resources, whether material, human, or symbolic. As a rule, the more differentiated and complex the governmental processes are, the greater the range and complexity of content. This follows because the content and processes of government vary together. Since both these frameworks are interdependent and derivative, both presuppose independent criteria for identifying government. The functional approach avoids these limitations. It defines government functionally as all those activities which influence â€Å"the way in which authoritative decisions are formulated and executed for a society. â€Å"l From this starting point, various refined conceptual schemes can be developed. As requisites or implications of these decisional processes, David Easton identifies five modes of action as necessary elements of all political systems: legislation, administration, adjudication, the development of demands, and the development of support and solidarity. They may be grouped as input and output requisites of governmental systems. According to Almond, the universally necessary inputs are political socialization and recruitment, interest articulation, interest aggregation, and political communication. As outputs, he states that rule making, rule application, and rule adjudication are all universa1. 2 Neither of these categorical schemes specifies foreign relations and defense, which are two very general governmental concerns; nor is it easy to see how these schemes could accommodate political processes in non-societal units. Such deductive models suffer from certain inexplicit assumptions with1 David Easton, â€Å"An Approach to the Analysis of Political Systems,† World Politics, IX, No. 3 (1957), 384. 2 Gabriel Almond, â€Å"Introduction† to Almond and James S. Coleman, The Politics of the Developing Areas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961). A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS / 115 out which the initial exclusive stress on political functions might be im- . possible. But despite their universal claims, it remains to be shown that Bushmen, Pygmies, or Eskimos have governments which are functionally homologous with those of the United States and the Soviet Union. Legislation, rule adjudication, and interest articulation are categories appropriate to the discussion of complex, modern polities rather than simple, primitive ones. But the problem which faces the student of comparative politics is to develop a conceptual framework useful and applicable to all. To impute the features and conditions of modern polities to the less differentiated primitive systems is virtually to abandon the central problem of comparative politics. The functional approach, as usually presented, suffers from a further defect: It assumes a rather special ensemble of structural conditions. When â€Å"authoritative decisions are formulated and executed for a society,† this unit must be territorially delimited and politically centralized. The mode of centralization should also endow government with â€Å"more-or-Iess legitimate physical compulsion. â€Å"3 In short, the reality to which the model refers is the modern nation-state. By such criteria, ethnography shows that the boundaries of many societies are fluctuating and obscure, and that the authoritative status of decisions made in and for them are even more so. Clearly bounded societies with centralized authority systems are perhaps a small minority of the polities with which we have to deal. A structural approach free of these functional presumptions may thus be useful, but only if it can accommodate the full range of political systems and elucidate the principles which underlie their variety. In this paper, I shall only indicate the broad outlines of this approach. I hope to present it more fully in the future. You read "Structural Functional Approach" in category "Essay examples" Government is the regulation of public affairs. This regulation is a set of processes which defines government functionally, and which also identifies its content as the affairs which are regulated, and the resources used to regulate them. It does not seem useful or necessary to begin a comparative study of governmental systems by deductive theories which predicate their minimum universal content, requisites, or features. The critical element in government is its public character. Without a public, there can be neither public affairs nor processes to regulate them. Moreover, while all governments presuppose publics, all publics have governments for the management of their affairs. The nature of these publics is therefore the first object of study. Publics vary in scale, composition, and character, and it is reasonable to suppose that their common affairs and regulatory arrangements will vary correspondingly. The first task of a structural approach to comparative politics is thus to identify the properties of a public and to indicate the principal varieties and bases of publics. 3 Almond, â€Å"Introduction,† p. . 116 / A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS As I use the term, public does not include mobs, crowds, casual assemblies, or mass-communication audiences. It does not refer to such categories as resident aliens, the ill, aged, or unwed, or to those social segments which lack common affairs and organized procedures to regulate them-for example, slaves, some clans, and unenfranchised strata such as the medieval serfs or the harijans of India. Such categories are part of one or more publics; they are not separate publics of their own. For example, in an Indian village, a medieval manor, or a slave plantation, members of the disprivileged categories constitute a public only if they form an enduring group having certain common affairs and the organization and autonomy necessary to regulate them; but the existence of such local publics is not in itself sufficient for the strata from which their memberships are drawn to have the status of publics. For this to be the case, these local publics must be organized into a single group co-extensive with the stratum. With such organization, we shall expect to find a set of common affairs and procedures to regulate them. The organization is itself an important common affair and a system of institutional procedures. By a public, then, I mean an enduring, presumably perpetual group with determinate boundaries and membership, having an internal organization and a unitary set of external relations, an exclusive body of common affairs, and autonomy and procedures adequate to regulate them. It will be evident that a public can neither come into being nor maintain its existence without some set of procedures by which it regulates its internal and external affairs. These procedures together form the governmental process of the public. Mobs, crowds, and audiences are not publics, because they lack presumptive continuity, internal organization, common affairs, procedures, and autonomy. For this reason, they also lack the determinate boundaries and membership which are essential for a durable group. While the categories mentioned above are fixed and durable, they also lack the internal organization and procedures which constitute a group. When groups are constituted so that their continuity, identity, autonomy, organization, and exclusive affairs are not disturbed by the entrance or exit of their individual members, they have the character of a public. The city of Santa Monica shares these properties with the United States, the Roman Catholic Church, Bushman bands, the dominant caste of an Indian village, the Mende Pora, an African lineage, a Nahuatl or Slavonic village community, Galla and Kikuyu age-sets, societies among the Crow and Hidatsa Indians, universities, medieval guilds, chartered companies, regiments, and such â€Å"voluntary† associations as the Yoruba Ogboni, the Yako lkpungkara, and the American Medical Association. The units just listed are all publics and all are corporate groups; the governmental process inherent in publics is a feature of all corporate groups. Corporate groups-Maine’s â€Å"corporations aggregate†-are one species of â€Å"perfect† or fully-fledged corporation, the other being the â€Å"corporation A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS / 117 sole† exemplified by such offices as the American Presidency, the British Crown, the Papacy, governorships, chieftaincies, and university chancellorships. Corporations sole and corporate groups share the following characteristics, all of which are necessary for â€Å"perfect† or full corporate status: identity, presumed perpetuity, closure and membership, autonomy within a given sphere, exclusive common affairs, set procedures, and organization. The first four of these qualities are formal and primarily external in their reference; they define the unit in relation to its context. The last four conditions are processual and functional, and primarily internal in their reference. The main differences between corporations sole and corporate groups are structural, though developmental differences are also important. Corporate groups are pluralities to which an unchanging unity is ascribed; viewed externally, each forms â€Å"one person,† as Fortes characterized the Ashanti matrilineages. This external indivisibility of the corporate group is not merely a jural postulate. It inevitably presumes and involves governmental processes within the group. In contrast with a corporate group, an office is a unique status having only one incumbent at any given time. Nonetheless, successive holders of a common office are often conceived of and addressed as a group. The present incumbent is merely one link in a chain of indefinite exten t, the temporary custodian of all the properties, powers, and privileges which constitute the office. As such, incumbents may legitimately seek to aggrandize their offices at the expense of similar units or of the publics to which these offices relate; but they are not personally authorized to alienate or reduce the rights and powers of the status temporarily entrusted to them. The distinction between the capital of an enterprise and the personalty of its owners is similar to the distinction between the office and its incumbent. It is this distinction that enables us to distinguish ffices from other personal statuses most easily. It is very possible that in social evolution the corporate group preceded the corporation sole. However, once authority is adequately centralized, offices tend to become dominant; and then we often find that offices are instituted in advance of the publics they will regulate or represent, as, for example, when autocrats order the establishment of new towns, settlements, or colonies under officials designated to set up and administer them. There are many instances in which corporate groups and offices emerge and develop in harmony and congruence, and both may often lapse at once as, for example, when a given public is conquered and assimilated. These developmental relations are merely one aspect of the very variable but fundamental relation between offices and corporate groups. Despite Weber, there are a wide range of corporate groups which lack stable leaders, 4 Meyer Fortes, â€Å"Kinship and Marriage among the Ashanti,† in African Sys- tems of Kinship and Marriage, eds. A. R. Radcliffe-Brown and Daryll Forde (London: Oxford University Press, 1950), pp. 254-61. 118 / A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS much less official heads. Others may have senior members whose authority is at best advisory and representative; yet others have a definite council or an official head, or both. In many cases, we have to deal with a public constituted by a number of coordinate corporate groups of similar type. The senior members of these groups may form a collegial body to administer the common affairs of the public, with variable powers. Ibo and Indian village communities illustrate this well. In such contexts, where superordinate offices emerge, they often have a primarily sacred symbolic quality, as do the divine kingships of the Ngonde and Shilluk, but lack effective secular control. Between this extreme and an absolute despotism, there are a number of differing arrangements which only a comparative structural analysis may reduce to a single general order. Different writers stress different features of corporate organization, and sometimes employ these to â€Å"explain† these social forms. Weber, who recognizes the central role of corporate groups in political systems, fails to distinguish them adequately from offices (or â€Å"administrative organs,† as he calls them). 5 For Weber, corporate groups are defined by coordinated action under leaders who exercise de facto powers of command over them. The inadequacy of this view is patent when Barth employs it as the basis for denying to lineages and certain other units the corporate status they normally have, while reserving the term corporate for factions of a heterogeneous and contingent character. Maine, on the other hand, stresses the perpetuity of the corporation and its inalienable bundle of rights and obligations, the estate with which it is indentified. 7 For Gierke,s Durkheim,9 and Davis,10 corporate groups are identified by their common will, collective conscienc~, and group personality. For Goody, only named groups holding material property in common are corporate. 1! These definitions all suffer from ove remphasis on some elements, and corresponding inattention to others. The common action characteristic of corporate groups rarely embraces the application of violence which both Weber and Barth seem to stress. Mass violence often proceeds independ5 Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. A. R. Henderson and Talcott Parsons (London: Wm. Hodge Co. , 1947), pp. 133-37, 302-5. 6 Fredrik Barth, Political Leadership among Swat Pathans. Monographs in Social Anthropology, London School of Economics, No. 19 (London: University of London Press, 1959). 7 H. S. Maine, Ancient Law (London: Routledge Kegan Paul, Ltd. , 1904), p. 155. S Otto Gierke, Natural Law and the Theory of Society, 1500 to 1800, trans. Ernest Barker (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957). Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society, trans. George E. Simpson (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, Inc. , 1933). 10 John P. Davis, Corporations (New York: Capricorn Books, 1961), p. 34. 11 Jack Goody, â€Å"The Classification of Double Descent Systems,† Current Anthropology; II, No. 1 (1961), 5, 22-3. A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS / 119 ently of corporate groups. Corporate action is typically act ion to regulate corporate affairs-that is, to exercise and protect corporate rights, to enforce corporate obligations, and to allocate corporate responsibilities and privileges. When a group holds a common estate, this tenure and its exercise inevitably involve corporate action, as does any ritual in which the members or representatives of the group engage as a unit. Even the maintenance of the group’s identity and closure entails modes of corporate action, the complexity and implications of which vary with the situation. It is thus quite fallacious to identify corporate action solely with coordinated physical movements. A chorus is not a corporate group. The presumed perpetuity, boundedness, determinate membership, and identity of a corporation, all more or less clearly entail one another, as do its requisite features of autonomy, organization, procedure, and common affairs. It is largely because of this interdependence and circularity among their elements that corporations die so hard; but by the same token, none of these elements alone can constitute or maintain a corporation. An office persists as a unit even if it is not occupied, providing that the corpus of rights, responsibilities, and powers which constitute it still persists. To modify or eliminate the office, it is necessary to modify. or eliminate its content. Among ! Kung bushmen, bands persist as corporate groups even when they have no members or heads12 ; these bands are units holding an inalienable estate of water holes, veldkos areas, etc. , and constitute the fixed points of ! Kung geography and society. The Bushman’s world being constituted by corporate bands, the reconstitution of these bands is unavoidable, whenever their dissolution makes this necessary. As units which are each defined by an exclusive universitas juris, corporations provide the frameworks of law and authoritative regulation for the societies that they constitute. The corporate estate includes rights in the persons of its members as well as in material or incorporeal goods. In simpler societies, the bulk of substantive law consists in these systems of corporate right and obligation, and includes the conditions and correlates of membership in corporate groups of differing type. In such societies, adjectival law consists in the usual modes of corporate procedure. To a much greater extent than is commonly ealized, this is also the case with modern societies. The persistence, internal autonomy, and structural uniformity of the corporations which constitute the society ensure corresponding uniformity in its jural rules and their regular application over space and time. As modal units of social process and structure, corporations provide the framework in which the jural asp ects of social relations are defined and enforced. Tribunals are merely functionally specific corporations charged with handling issues of certain kinds. Neither tribunals nor â€Å"the systematic ap12 Lorna Marshall, â€Å"! Kung Bushmen Bands,† A/rica, XXX (1960), 325- 5). 120 / A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS plication of the force of politically organized society†13 are necessary or sufficient for the establishment of law. The law of a primitive society consists in its traditional procedures and modes of corporate action, and is implicit in the traditional rights, obligations, and conditions of corporate membership. In such societies, units which hold the same type of corporate estate are structurally homologous, and are generally articulated in such a way that each depends on the tacit recognition or active support of its fellows to maintain and enjoy its estate. Thus, in these simpler systems, social order consists in the regulation of relations between the constitutive corporations as well as within them. In societies which lack central political organs, societal boundaries coincide with the maximum range of an identical corporate constitution, on the articulation of which the social order depends. Though the component corporations are all discrete, they are also interdependent. But they may be linked together in a number of different ways, with consequent differences in their social systems. In some cases, functionally distinct corporations may be classified together in purely formal categories, such as moieties, clans, or castes. The Kagoro of northern Nigeria illustrate this. 14 In other cases, corporations which are formally and functionally distinct may form a wider public having certain common interests and affairs. The LoDagaba of northern Ghana and Upper Volta are an example. 15 In still other cases, corporations are linked individually to one another in a complex series of alliances and associations, with overlapping margins in such a way that they all are related, directly or indirectly, in the same network. Fortes has given us a very detailed analysis of such a system among the Tallensi. 16 However they are articulated in societies which lack central institutions, it is the extensive replication of these corporate forms which defines the unit as a separate system. Institutional uniformities, which include similarities of organization, ideology, and procedure, are quite sufficient to give these acephalous societies systemic unity, even where, as among the Kachins of Burma, competing institutional forms divide the allegiance of their members. 7 To say that corporations provide the frameworks of primitive law, and that the tribunals of modem societies are also corporate forms, is simply to say that corporations are the central agencies for the regulation of public affairs, being themselves each a separate public or organ, administering certain affairs, and together constituting wider publics or associations of publics 13 Roscoe Pound, Readings on the History and System 0/ the Common Law, 2 nd ed. (Boston: Dunster House Bookshop, 1913), p. 4. 14 M. G. Smith, â€Å"Kagoro Political Development,† Human Organization, XIX, No. 3 (1960), 37-49. 15 Jack Goody, â€Å"Fields of Social Control among the LoDagaba,† Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, LXXXVII, Part I (1957),75-104. 16 Meyer Fortes, The Dynamics 0/ Clanship among the Tallensi (London: Oxford University Press, 1945). 17 E. R. Leach, Political Systems of Highland Burma (London: G. Bell Sons, Ltd. , 1954). A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS / 121 for others. By the same token, they are the sources or frameworks of disorder. In some acephalous societies, disorder seems more or less perennial, and consists mainly in strife within and between corporations. Centralization, despite its merits, does not really exclude disorder. In concentrating authority, it simultaneously concentrates the vulnerability of the system. Accordingly, in centralized societies, serious conflicts revolve around the central regulative structures, as, for instance, in secessionist or revolutionary struggles, dynastic or religious wars, and â€Å"rituals of rebellion. â€Å"18 Such conflicts with or for central power normally affect the entire social body. In acephalous societies, on the other hand, conflicts over the regime may proceed in one region without implicating the others. 19 In both the centralized and decentralized systems, the sources and objects of conflict are generally corporate. Careful study of Barth’s account of the Swat Pathans shows that this is true for them also, although the aggregates directly contraposed are factions and blocs. 20 Societal differences in the scale, type, and degree of order and coordination, or in the frequency, occasions, and forms of social conflict are important data and problems for political science. To analyze them adequately, one must use a comparative structural approach. Briefly, recent work suggests that the quality and modes of order in any social system reflect its corporate constitution-that is, the variety of corporate types which constitute it, their distinctive bases and properties, and the way in which they are related to one another. The variability of political systems which derives from this condition is far more complex and interesting than the traditional dichotomy of centralized and noncentralized systems would suggest. I have already indicated some important typological differences within the category of acephalous societies; equally significant differences within the centralized category are familiar to all. This traditional dichotomy assumes that centralization has a relatively clear meaning, from which a single, inclusive scale may be directly derived. This assumption subsumes a range of problems which require careful study; but in any event, centralization is merely one aspect of political organization, and not necessarily the most revealing. Given variability in the relations between corporations sole and corporate groups, and in their bases and forms, it seems more useful to distinguish systems according to their structural simplicity or complexity, by reference to · the variety of corporate units of differing forms, bases, and functions which they contain, and the principles which serve to articulate them. Patently, such differences in composition imply differences in the relational networks in which these corporations articulate. Such ifferences in structural composition simultaneously describe the variety of political forms 18 Max Gluckman, Rituals of Rebellion in South East Africa (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1954); â€Å"Introduction† to Gluckman, Order and Rebellion in Tribal Africa (London: Cohen West, 1963). 19 Leach, Political Systems 0/ Highland Burma. 20 Barth, Political Leadership among Swat Pathans. 122 / A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS and processes, and explain differe nces in the scale, order, and coordination of polities. This is so because corporate organization provides the framework, content, and procedures for the regulation of public affairs. For this reason, the analysis of corporate structure should be the first task in the case study of a political system and in comparative work. For many political scientists, the concept of sovereignty is essential as the foundation of governmental order and autonomy. In my view, this notion is best dispensed with. It is a hindrance rather than a help to analysis, an unhappy solution of a very real problem which has been poorly formulated. In a system of sovereign states, no state is sovereign. As etymology shows, the idea of sovereignty derives from the historically antecedent condition of personal dominion such as kingship, and simply generalizes the essential features of this form as an ideology appropriate to legitimate and guide other forms of centralization. The real problem with which the notion of sovereignty deals is the relation between autonomy and coordination. As the fundamental myth of the modern nation-state, the concept is undoubtedly important in the study of these states; its historical or analytical usefulness is otherwise very doubtful. It seems best to formulate the problems of simultaneous coordination and autonomy in neutral terms. As units administering exclusive common affairs, corporations presuppose well-defined spheres and levels of autonomy, which are generally no more nor less than the affairs of these units require for their adequate regulation. Where a corporation fully subsumes all the juridical rights of its members so that their corporate identification is exclusive and lifelong, the tendencies toward autarchy are generally greatest, the stress on internal autonomy most pronounced, and relations between corporations most brittle. This seems to be the case with certain types of segmentary lineage systems, such as the Tallensi. Yet even in these conditions, and perhaps to cope with them, we usually find institutional bonds of various types such as ritual cooperation, local community, intermarriage, clanship, and kinship which serve to bind the autarchic individual units into a series of wider publics, or a set of dyadic or triadic associations, the members of which belong to several such publics simultaneously. Weber’s classification of corporate groups as heteronomous or autonomous, heterocephalous or autocephalous, touches only those aspects of this problem in which he was directly interested. 21 We need also to analyze and compare differing levels, types, and degrees of autonomy and dependence in differing social spheres and situations. From comparative studies of these problems, we may hope to derive precise hypotheses about the conditions and limits of corporate autonomy and articulation in systems of differing composition and span. These hypotheses should also illuminate the conditions and limits of social disorder. Besides the â€Å"perfect† or fully-fledged corporations, offices and corpo21 Weber, Theory 0/ Social and Economic Organization, pp. 135-36. A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS / 123 rate groups, there are â€Å"imperfect† quasicorporations with must also be studied explicitly. The two main forms here are the corporate category and the commission. A corporate category is a clearly bounded, identifiable, and permanent aggregate which differs from the corporate group in lacking exclusive common affairs, autonomy, procedures adequate for their regulation, and the internal organization which constitutes the group. Viewed externally, acephalous societies may be regarded as corporate categories in their geographical contexts, since each lacks a single inclusive frame of organization. But they are categories of a rather special type, since, as we have seen, their institutional uniformity provides an effective basis for functional unity. In medieval Europe, serfs formed a corporate category even though on particular manors they may have formed corporate groups. Among the Turkana22 and Karimojong23 of East Africa, age-sets are corporate categories since they lack internal organization, exclusive affairs, distinctive procedures, and autonomy. Among the nearby Kipsigi24 and Nandi25 clans are categorical units. These clans have names and identifying symbols, a determinate membership recruited by agnatic descent, certain ritual and social prohibitions of which exogamy is most important, and continuity over time; but they lack internal organization, common affairs, procedures and autonomy to regulate them. Though they provide a set of categories into which all members of these societies are distributed, they never function as social groups. Not far to the south, in Ruanda, the subject Hutu caste formed a corporate category not so long ago. 26 This â€Å"caste† had a fixed membership, closure, easy identification, and formed a permanent structural unit in the Tutsi state. Rutu were excluded from the political process, as a category and almost to a man. They lacked any inclusive internal organization, exclusive affairs, autonomy, or procedures to regulate them. Under their Tutsi masters, they held the status of serfs; but when universal suffrage was recently introduced, Rutu enrolled in political parties such as the Parmehutu Aprosoma which succeeded in throwing off the Tutsi yoke and expelling the monarchy. 27 In order to become corporate groups, corporate categories need to develop an effective representative organization, such for instance as may now be emerging among American Negroes. In the American case, this corporate category is seeking to organize itself in order to remove the disprivileges which define it as a category. Some corporate 22 Philip Gulliver, â€Å"The Turkana Age Organization,† American Anthropologist, LX (1958), 900-922. 23 Neville Dyson-Hudson, to author, 1963. 24 J. G. Peristiany, The Social Institutions of the Kipsigis (London: Routledge Kegan Paul, Ltd. , 1939). 25 G. W. B. Huntingford, The Nandi of Kenya (London: Routledge Kegan Paul, Ltd. , 1953). 26 J. J. Maquet, The Premise of Inequality in Ruanda (London: Oxford University Press, 1960). 27 Marcel d’Hertefelt, â€Å"Les Elections Communales et Ie Consensus Politique au Rwanda,† Zaire, XIV, Nos. -6 (1960), 403-38. 124 / A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS categories are thus merely formal units lacking common functions; others are defined by common disabilities and burdens, though lacking common affairs. Under Islam, the dhimmi formed such a category; in India, so do the individual castes. The disabilities and prohibitions which define categories are not always directly political; they include ex ogamy and ritual taboos. Commissions differ from offices along lines which recall the differences between corporate categories and corporate groups. Like categories, commissions fall into two main classes: one class includes ad hoc and normally discontinuous capacities of a vaguely defined character, having diffuse or specific objects. The other class includes continuing series of indefinite number, the units of which are all defined in such general terms as to appear structurally and functionally equivalent and interchangeable. Familiar examples of the latter class are military commissions, magistracies, professorships, and priesthoods; but the sheiks and sa’ids of Islam belong here also. Examples of the first class, in which the powers exercised are unique but discontinuous and ill-defined, include parliamentary commissions of enquiry or other ad hoc commissions, and plenipotentiaries commissioned to negotiate special arrangements. In some societies, such as the Eskimo, Bushman, and Nuer, individuals having certain gifts may exercise informal commissions which derive support and authority from public opinion. The Nuer â€Å"bull,† prophet, and leopard-skin priests are examples. 28 Among the Eskimos, the shaman and the fearless hunter-warrior have similar positions. 9 The persistence of these commissions, despite turnover of personnel and their discontinuous action, is perhaps the best evidence of their importance in these social systems. For their immediate publics, such commissions personalize social values of high relevance and provide agencies for ad hoc regulation and guidance of action. In these humble forms, we may perceive the seeds of modern bureaucrac y. Commissions are especially important as regulatory agencies in social movements under charismatic leaders, and during periods of popular unrest. The charismatic leadership is itself merely the supreme directing commission. As occasion requires, the charismatic leader creates new commissions by delegating authority and power to chosen individuals for special tasks. The careers of Gandhi, Mohammed, Hitler, and Shehu Usumanu dan Fodio in Hausaland illustrate this pattern well. So does the organization and development of the various Melanesian â€Å"cargo cults. â€Å"30 But if the commission is to be institutionalized as a unit of permanent administration, its arbitrary 28 E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer (London: Oxford University Press, 940). 29 Kaj Birket-Smith, The Eskimo (London: Meuthuen Co. , Ltd. , 1960); V. Stefansson, My Life with the Eskimo (New York: The Crowell-Collier Publishing Co. , 1962). 80 Peter Worsley, The Trumpet Shall Sound (London: McGibbon Kee, 1957). A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVB POLma / 125 character must be replaced by set rules, procedures, and spheres of action; this institutionalization c onverts the commission into an office in the same way that its organization converts the corporate category into a corporate group. Moreover, in the processes by which corporate categories organize themselves as groups, charismatic leadership and its attached commissions are the critical agencies. The current movement for civil rights among American Negroes illustrates this neatly. Any given public may include offices, commissions, corporate categories, and corporate groups of differing bases and type. In studying governmental systems, we must therefore begin by identifying publics and analyzing their internal constitution as well as their external relationships in these terms. It is entirely a matter of convenience whether we choose to begin with the smallest units and work outwards to the limits of their relational systems, or to proceed in the opposite direction. Given equal thoroughness, the results should be the same in both cases. Any governmental unit is corporate, and any public may include, wholly or in part, a number of such corporations. These units and their interrelations together define the internal order and constitution of the public and its network of external relations. Both in the analysis of particular systems and in comparative work, we should therefore begin by determining the corporate composition of the public under study, by distinguishing its corporate groups, offices, commissions, and categories, and by defining their several properties and features. As already mentioned, we may find, in some acephalous societies, a series of linked publics with intercalary corporations and overlapping margins. We may also find that a single corporate form, such as the Mende Para or the Roman Catholic Church, cuts across a number of quite distinct and mutually independent publics. An alternative mode of integration depends on the simultaneous membership of individuals in several distinct corporations of differing constitution, interest and kind. Thus, an adult Yako81 simultaneously belongs to a patrilineage, a matrilineage, an age-set in his ward, the ward (which is a distinct corporate group), one or more functionally specific corporate associations at the ward or village level, and the village, which is the widest public. Such patterns of overlapping and dispersed membership may characterize both individuals and corporations equally. The corporations will then participate in several discrete publics, each with its exclusive affairs, autonomy, membership, and procedures, just as the individual participates in several corporations. It is this dispersed, multiple membership which is basic to societal unity, whether or not government is centralized. Even though the inclusive public with a centralized authority system is a corporate group, and a culturally distinct population 81Daryll Forde, Yako Studies (London: Oxford University Press, 1964); Kenneth Little, The -Mende of Sierra Leone (London: Routledge Kegan Paul, Ltd. 1951). 126 / A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS without this remains a corporate category, functionally both aggregates derive their underlying unities from the same mechanism of crosscutting memberships, loyalties, and cleavages. In the structural study of a given political system, we must therefore define its corporate constitution, determine the principles on which these corporate form s are based, and see how they articulate with one another. In comparative study, we seek to determine what differences or uniformities of political process, content, and function correspond with observable differences or uniformities of corporate composition and articulation. For this purpose, we must isolate the structural principles on which the various types of corporations are based in order to determine their requisites and implications, and to assess their congruence or discongruence. To indicate my meaning, it is sufficient to list the various principles on which corporate groups and categories may be based. These include sex, age, locality, ethnicity, descent, common property interests, ritual and belief, occupation, and â€Å"voluntary† association for diffuse or specific pursuits. Ethnographic data show that we shall rarely find corporate groups which are based exclusively on one of these principles. As a rule, their foundations combine two, three, or more principles, with corresponding complexity and stability in their organization. Thus, lineages are recruited and defined by descent, common property interests, and generally co-residence. Besides equivalence in age, age-sets presume sameness of sex and, for effective incorporation, local co-residence. Guilds typically stressed occupation and locality; but they were also united by property interests in common market facilities. In India, caste is incorporated on the principles of descent, ritual, and occupation. Clearly, differing combinations of these basic structural principles will give rise to corporations of differing type, complexity, and capacity; and these differences will also affect the content, functions, forms, and contextual relations of the units which incorporate them. It follows that differing combinations of these differing corporate forms underlie the observable differences of order and process in political organization. This is the broad hypothesis to which the comparative- structural study of political systems leads. It is eminently suited to verification or disproof. By the same token, uniformities in corporate composition and organization between, as well as within, societies should entail virtual identities of political process, content, and form. When, to the various possible forms of corporate group differentiated by the combination of structural principles on which they are based and by the relations to their corporate contexts which these entail, we add the other alternatives of office, commission, and category, themselves variable with respect to the principles which constitute them, we simultaneously itemize the principal elements which give rise to the variety of political forms, and the principles and methods by which we can reasonably hope A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS / 127 to reduce them to a single general order. Since corporations are essential regulatory units of variable character, their different combinations encompass the entire range of variability of political systems on the functional, processual, and substantive, as well as on the structural levels. Within this structural framework, we may also examine the nature of the regulatory process, its constituents, modes, and objectives. The basic elements of regulation are authority and power. Though always interdependent and often combined, they should not be confused. As a regulatory capacity, authority is legitimated and identified by the rules, traditions, and precedents which embody it and which govern its exercise and objects. Power is also regulatory, but is neither fully prescribed nor governed by norms and rules. Whereas authority presumes and expresses normative consensus, power is most evident in conflict and contraposition where dissensus obtains. In systems of public regulation, these conditions of consent and dissent inevitably concur, although they vary in their forms, objects, and proportions. Such systems accordingly depend on the simultaneous exercise and interrelation of the power and authority with which they are identified. Structural analysis enables us to identify the various contexts in which these values and capacities appear, the forms they may take, the objectives they may pursue, and their typical relations with one another within as well as between corporate units. In a structurally homogeneous system based on replication of a single corporate form, the mode of corporate organization will canalize the authority structure and the issues of conflict. It will simultaneously determine the forms of congruence or incongruence between the separate corporate groups. In a structurally heterogeneous system having a variety of corporate forms, we shall also have to look for congruence or incongruence among corporations of differing types, and for interdependence or competition at the various structural levels. Any corporate group embodies a set of structures and procedures which enjoy authority. By definition, all corporations sole are such units. Within, around, and between corporations we shall expect to find recurrent disagreements over alternative courses of action, the interpretation and application of relevant rules, the allocation of positions, privileges and obligations, etc. These issues recurrently develop within the framework of corporate interests, and are settled by direct or indirect exercise of authority and power. Few serious students now attempt to reduce political systems to the modality of power alone; but many, under Weber’s influence, seek to analyze governments solely in terms of authority. Both alternatives are misleading. Our analysis simultaneously stresses the difference and the interdependence of authority and power. The greater the structural simplicity of a given system, that is, its dependence on replication of a single corporate form, such as the Bushman band or Tallensi lineage, the greater its decen- 28 / A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS tralization and the narrower the range in which authority and power may apply. The greater the heterogeneity of corporate types in a given system, the greater the number of levels on which authority and power are simultaneously requisite and manifest, and the more critical their congruence for the integration of the system as a whole. How to cite Structural Functional Approach, Essay examples

Principles of Managing Information and Producing Documents free essay sample

Unit title: Principles of managing information and producing documents 1. Understand the purpose of information technology in a business environment 1. 1 Identify different types of information technology that may be used for work tasks Types of technology that could be used to do tasks at work are computer software like: Microsoft Word which is software used to create documents Excel is software that can be used for storing and organising data. Publisher is software which is used to create almost anything from documents to greeting cards. Could also use a fax machine, telephone and send emails. 1. 2 Outline the benefits of using information technology for work tasks The benefits of using technology for work tasks include: Speed – A computer can search through files and records quickly to find the information you require. It can also make it quicker and easier to change a mistake. Editing – If you hand write documents if there was a mistake you would have to retype from scratch, but on the computer documents can be easily amended. Quality – On the computer there are many tools that make the quality of a document better like spell and grammar check, templates, different fonts and emboldening, borders, bullet points or numbering and all them enable high quality documents to be produced. Access – On a computer you can control who gets access to the documents because you can just send it to certain people or if you have a password on the computer it restricts who can get on. 1. Understand how to manage electronic and paper based information 1. 1 Explain the purpose of agreeing objectives and deadline for researching information The purpose of agreeing objectives and deadlines is to ensure that you collect all the needed information to complete the task given and you will have a correct date to finish it by. You will also know what sort of resources to use to collect the data because depending on what you’re looking for something’s could be copy righted which you cannot use because it’s illegal. 1. 2 Identify different ways of researching, organising and reporting information Different sources of research are: Paper-based like libraries and newspapers. Technological which is internet, CD/DVDS and television. Asking people which is primary research and gathering research yourself is secondary. To organize information you could: Organise informations according to relevance. Put it in numeric or alphabetical order. Keep it in date order. Different ways of Filing information: Numeric order. Alphabetical Date To report information means keep a log of your information and its sources. First you should plan a report and know what the purpose is for it, then find the data you need to write a report, should then produce a draft and check everything you need is there and then finalise your report and checking it again. 1. 1 Describe procedures to be followed for archiving, retrieving and deleting information, including legal requirements, if required Electronic and paper-based methods: Out guide/Absent cards – Are used when someone removes a file from the shelf and they will insert an out guide in its place which will say which file has been taken and who has taken it. Cross Referencing – So if input onto the computer with a number you can find the original in the files. File retention polices – A company has to keep certain documents for a certain amount of time. Indexing – To keeping a list of names or subjects with references to the pages so able to find when needing the original copy from a file. You can store information on a hard drive inside your pc, you can save it onto a CD/DVD or a memory stick. You can keep data safe by having a password on everything that needs to be kept private, and could have locked away in a certain order in some unit cabinets so only certain people can get in and see the information. The best way to dispose important and personal data is to shred it. 1. 2 Explain why confidentiality is critical when managing information Confidential information could be someone’s personal details like their home address and bank details which must be kept secure under legislation requirements. It is important to keep details confidential to avoid identity theft, also makes clients feel more secure knowing there information is safe because they would not want anybody to find out there details. You can keep data secured manually which is held in a locked area or cabinet, or keep it electronically that is password controlled. 2. Understand the purpose of producing documents that are fit-for-purpose 2. 1 Identify reasons for producing documents that are fit-for-purpose Documents should be fit for purpose so that it is suitable for the audience it is intended for and so that it meets the company standards. To do this you need to make sure that the document is readable, is accurate on details and enhances the organisations reputation. 2. 2 Describe different types and styles of documents and when they are used Different types and styles of documents have different people to use for – Letters for clients and customers Emails with attachments for circulation information to colleagues Reports for providing information to colleagues Most companies have a certain house style template for documents which is formatted accordingly to the guidelines of the certain organisation. Having a template specific to the company has the benefit of promoting the company image and having consistency with documents. 1. Know the procedures to be followed when producing documents 1. 1 Identify reasons for agreeing the purpose, content, layout, quality standards and deadlines for the production of document Reasons may include ensuring the correct format is used for the type of document being produced, because if the purpose is unclear the document will not make sense as it needs to. Content – So you know how to write the document correctly for the audience. Style – Varies on the type of document, so if it was an agreement then a formal standard style would be used. Deadline – Makes the time frame clear for something to be complete, also gives the client a clear time when the project should be finished by. Efficiency Makes the company look more professional and organised. Repetition – Doing good quality work on time gives a good impression of the company which could mean more work because they will be recommended because of its good repetition. 1. 2 Describe ways of checking finished documents for accuracy and correctness, and the purpose of doing so Ways of checking finished documents are by using the spell and grammar checker to ensure there are no mistakes, or you could ask a colleague to check the document to make sure all the necessary information has been included. You should always check that money, date, name and address details are all correct because if the address or money are incorrect someone wrong could be getting a lot or not enough money they need which would have a negative impact on the business and could lead to lost custom. 1. 3 Explain the purpose of confidentiality and data protection procedures when preparing documents You will be observing the Data Protection Act (1998) and policies and procedures of the organisation, this covers, Secure storage of documents Who should have access This is to avoid, Loss of personal data Damage to the business Prosecution The most sensitive information is anything that belongs in a personnel file like: Forms relating to employee benefits. Complaints from customers/co-workers. Records of attendance Warnings or other disciplinary actions Medical/Insurance records Litigation documents Forms providing emergency contacts Wage forms The information in a personnel file should be private and should have log ins to get into if saved onto a computer or saved in locked files and the only people that need access to it for wages etc, will have a key or the password. 1. 1 Compare different types of documents that may be produced from notes and the formats to be followed Documents that can be produced from notes are: Memo – The format will include â€Å"To†¦From†¦Ref†¦Date†¦Ã¢â‚¬  and then the relevant information being communicated. Letter – Printed on company header paper, listing reference, date, name, address, and subject, letter content, from, signature, name and job title. Also if the letter is confidential this must be stated. Report – Title, Introduction, Body of report, a conclusion, consistency of format is essential i. e. using the same font size and style throughout. Minutes – Title of the meeting, date was held, who attended. Agenda – Include apologies for absence, minuets of previous meeting, what it’s about, date, and time. 1. 2 Explain the procedures to be followed when preparing text from notes Procedures to follow when preparing text from notes Purpose for the notes. Format for the document. Check the notes to confirm right and amend if needed. Check you have all correct notes to make a document. Produce document. Check document.

The Outsiders Essays (2376 words) - Films, The Outsiders, Greaser

The Outsiders The Outsiders Introduction In this book analysis, about the book The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton I will discuss character and plot development, as well as the setting, the author's style and my opinions about the book. In this part of the analysis I will give some information about the subjects of the book, and about the author. The author wrote the story when she was just 16 years old, in the 1950s. The book was successful, and it was sold, and still being sold, in many copies as a young adults novel. There was a movie made about it, and today there are still many schools that use this book in junior high and high schools for English classes. There were plays made about the book too. The Outsiders is about a gang. They live in a city in Oklahoma. Ponyboy Curtis, a 14 year old greaser, tells the story. Other characters include Sodapop and Darry, Ponyboy's brothers, Johnny, Dallas, and Two-Bit, that were also gang members and Ponyboy's friends. This story deals with two forms of social classes: the socs, the rich kids, and the greasers, the poor kids. The socs go around looking for trouble and greasers to beat up, and then the greasers are blamed for it, because they are poor and cannot affect the authorities. I hope you would enjoy and learn something about the book from reading this analysis. Plot Development The plot development in the book, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, was easy to follow. In this part of the book analysis I will give some more details about the plot development. There were no hooks or hurdles in the beginning of the book, the first sentence starts right away with the plot?without any forewords. This is the beginning of the first sentence: When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house... (page 9). As you can see, it goes straight to the point without any prologues or any kind of introduction. The plot development in the middle of the story was sensible and easy to understand. It was clear and simple, and the events have occurred in a reasonable order. The ending of the story was a bit expected. I anticipated the death of Johnny because a broken neck usually means death. The death of Dally was not as predictable as Johnny's death because it was said that: He was tougher than the rest of us?tougher, colder, meaner. (page 19). I did not think that such a tough person would get himself killed because of a death of a friend, although it was said a short time before the death of Dally that: Johnny was the only thing Dally loved. (page 160). The climaxes at the end of the story were the deaths of Johnny and Dally. Here are quotations about the deaths: Johnny's death: The pillow seemed to sink a little, and Johnny died. (page 157). Dally's death: He was jerked half around by the impact of the bullets, then slowly crumpled with a look of grim triumph on his face. He was dead before he hit the ground. (page 162). To conclude I can say that the plot development was simple and easy to understand and to follow. The author organized it in a way that fits the actual content of the plot. Character Development The characters in the book, The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, were not very heroic?they were just humans?it was easy to believe that this is the way they should be. The characters in the plot give the reader a feeling this can be a true story. The author has created the personality of the characters through the descriptions of Ponyboy?the narrator?and through their actions. Following are some examples of these methods of getting familiar with a character. Here is an example for a description of Ponyboy: Steve Randle was seventeen, tall and lean, with thick greasy hair he kept combed in complicated swirls. He was cocky, smart, and Soda's best buddy since grade school. Steve's specialty was cars... (page 17). The reader can find this kind of descriptions almost everywhere in the story, but especially in the beginning. I think the author put them there because the reader

Modern society and Traditional soceity essays

Modern society and Traditional soceity essays There is a very simple way to define the difference between Traditional and Modern societies. The fundamental difference is that of the personal and the impersonal society. The personal or traditional society is quite formal. Peoples names are indicators of social status. The community is aware of who belongs in their given space and who doesnt. There is a strong sense of morality that is generally shared by members of the community. Even time is kept by a concrete system governed by harvests, solar or lunar cycles. The impersonal or modern society is much more abstract and informal. Names are arbitrary and can be changed at will without any significant social effect. Individuals rarely know their next door neighbors let alone who belongs in their community. Morality is left more or less to the individual although the individual must behave in accordance with agreed upon laws established by communal morality. Time is also arbitrary yet extremely important. Peoples lives, careers and even mental health are greatly affected by a system of time that has no solid basis for existence. These examples show the clear difference between Traditional and Modern societies. As we read in lecture no pure example of either exists anywhere in the world. Each example is something any given society strives for based on which example more closely represents their current social organization. 3. Puzos The Godfather reflects a traditional outlook on society and politics. Amerigo Bonasera an apparent immigrant to the United States put a great deal of faith in the American political system, in particular the judicial system when his daughter was severely beaten. Amerigo was disappointed in the ruling of the court to essentially free his daughters attackers citing their young age, clean records and fine families as reason for light punishment. If the law had more of a modern approach none of the previously ...

How to Make Sulfuric Acid at Home

How to Make Sulfuric Acid at Home Sulfuric acid is a useful acid to have on hand for a variety of home chemistry projects. However, it is not easy to obtain. Fortunately, you can make it yourself. Homemade Sulfuric Acid Materials This method starts with diluted sulfuric acid, which you boil to make concentrated sulfuric acid. This is the safest and easiest method of making sulfuric acid at home. Car battery acidGlass containerOutdoor source of heat, like a grill Battery acid, which may be purchased at an automotive supply store, is approximately 35% sulfuric acid. In many cases, this will be strong enough for your activities, but if you need concentrated sulfuric acid, you just need to remove the water. The resulting acid will not be as pure as reagent-grade sulfuric acid. Safest Method If you arent in a hurry, you can concentrate sulfuric acid by allowing the water to evaporate naturally. This takes several days. Place an open container of sulfuric acid somewhere with good circulation, safe from the possibility of a spill.Loosely cover the container to minimize contamination with dust and other particulates.Wait. The water will evaporate out of the solution, eventually leaving you with concentrated sulfuric acid. Note that sulfuric acid is highly hygroscopic, so it will retain a certain amount of water. You would need to heat the liquid to drive off the remaining water. Quickest Method The fastest method to concentrate sulfuric acid is to boil the water out of the acid. This is fast but requires extreme care. Youll want to do this outdoors so you wont be exposed to acid fumes, using borosilicate glass (Pyrex or Kimax). There is always a risk of shattering a glass container no matter what you are heating, so you need to be prepared for that possibility. Do not leave this project unattended. Heat the battery acid in a borosilicate glass pan.When the liquid level stops dropping, you will have concentrated the acid as much as you can. At this point, the steam will be replaced by white vapor, too. Be careful to avoid inhaling the fumes.Allow the liquid to cool before transferring it to another container.Seal the container to prevent water from the air getting into the acid. If the container is left open too long, the sulfuric acid will become diluted. Safety Notes Its advisable to keep baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) or another base on hand. If you spill some acid, you can quickly neutralize it by reacting it with the baking soda. Simply sprinkle baking soda on the spill.Be careful to avoid contact with the sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid is one of the strong acids. It is extremely corrosive and will react vigorously and unpleasantly with skin, mucous membranes, clothing and just about anything else it touches. Do not breathe the vapors, do not touch the acid, and do not spill it. Tie long hair back, wear goggles and gloves and cover exposed skin.Dont use metal pans or utensils. Sulfuric acid reacts with metal. Also, it will attack some types of plastic. Glass is a good choice.Sulfuric acid reacts with water in an exothermic reaction, but dilution with water is the best way to deal with an acid spill. Be sure to have copious amounts of water available, just in case something goes wrong. You can flood a small amount of acid with water. One the ac id is diluted, it can be neutralized with a weak base, such as baking soda, Caution: Sulfuric acid will splash when mixed with water. If you are going to work with this acid, know and respect its properties. Fast Facts: Making Sulfuric Acid Diluted sulfuric acid may be concentrated by boiling the liquid.Because fumes will be involved, its best to concentrate sulfuric acid outdoors or under a fume hood. Sulfuric Acid Projects and More Once you have sulfuric acid, its a good idea to learn more about it before using it, including the risks associated with using it and what projects you can do with it: How to Prepare Sulfuric Acid Solutions/DilutionsSulfuric Acid and Sugar DemoMixing Sulfuric Acid and WaterWhat Is Battery Acid? Notes About Battery Acid Battery acid is about 35% sulfuric acid. You can purchase it at an automotive supply store. It may not be on the shelf, so ask for it. Battery acid may be sold in five-gallon boxes, with the acid in a heavy-duty plastic bag and a plastic tube to dispense the liquid. The box is heavy; it would be disastrous to drop it. Therefore, its a good idea to know what to expect. Its practical to dispense a working volume of acid rather than try to deal with the entire container. Although the acid may come in a plastic container, its best to store this acid in a glass bottle. Sulfuric acid reacts with some types of plastic and may corrode a plastic container. The example mentioned used a glass wine bottle that had a plastic screw-top cap. Whatever container you use, be certain to label it as sulfuric acid and poison and store it somewhere that children and pets cant get to it. Also, dont store acid with ammonia because the two chemicals mix to release toxic fumes.

Db Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Db - Essay Example The performance of an employee is essential to the profitability of a corporation. This is the reason why every company should develop an appraisal system that will recognize an employee’s contribution to the company. The first step in designing an appraisal system is to set the objectives of the system. The criteria and metrics for evaluating successful performance must be determined. The appraisers or reviewers and participants should also be chosen. The appraisal does not end in the measurement of the employees’ performance but there should also be a feedback mechanism so that a reward system can also be properly put in place. There are several techniques of appraising performance of employees. One technique is to use a numerical or scalar rating system. The managers are asked to score an individual against a number of objectives/attributes. Other companies do not only ask the managers to rate the employees but they also ask their co-workers and customers to rate the employee. Sometimes the employee is asked to rate himself too (Admin, 2010). Another common method of appraisal is the Management By Objectives (MBO) which is the process wherein managers and employees set objectives for the employee then periodically evaluate the performance of the employee and reward him according to the results.

Problem Solving Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 3

Problem Solving - Case Study Example The short term liquidity of ACLU improves with time and that is a good indicator for the company. The return on assets of the company shows the ability of the company to increase profits as a result of the productivity accruing from the net assets. The measure will show the productivity of the company. The productivity of the company will affect the ability of the company to increase profits and, hence, the financial position of the company. The company mainly relies on donations as opposed to loans. That means that it will have no financial obligation to external firms or financial institutions (Finkler 2010). If I were a fund raising manager, I would mainly focus on the current members as opposed to new members. If a person wants to make donations and would want to know the amount of money that will be put in the major activities of the company, I would advise on the use of efficiency ratios. All the chapters were audited because the final report was given by the company. The financial statements are not free of error because auditing is an exercise that involves sampling and that could be subject to some approximation error. The donation of land and buildings should be treated differently as capital items and they should be capitalizing in the recording of their receipt. If wish sued LIFO method, the net assets would have increased as opposed to the use of FIFO. The service that qualifies as a program service is management and general services. The decrease in net assets could be as a result of the losses from the stock market because the investments have been incorporated as part of assets of the company. Wish does not include any provisions for a law suit because they have not indicated such an instance. The overall assessment of the finances of wish shows that the company is doing well but has the potential of doing much

Child Life During the American Revolution Essay Example for Free

Child Life During the American Revolution Essay During the American Revolution, children were not a big involvement in it, but, they were still active during it. Well, during this time, there was not really a good schools system for children. Boys were usually out working a job or going to school. They did most of the money work out of all the children. Also, while the boys were working, the girls were at home learning proper etiquette from their mother or a house slave. Girls were taught to be very lady-like during all hours. It was very rare to see a girls go to school getting a proper education. Lastly, some of the older boys were out fighting in the Revolutionary War. Boys would do war work at a young age back then. One thing that boys did during the American Revolution is go to school and get jobs. Their type of school system during the American Revolution was not like our school system today. In the late 1700s weren’t as structured, settled, and complicated. At the schools the boys went to they learn mostly about Christianity and how to read and write. Boys went to grammar school and college. There was a public school that was free for education and then there was a private school that you have to pay. People in the Middle Class and Upper Class were usually the only class of people that attended school. Back then, school wasn’t mandatory. If a boy wasn’t in school he would usually be working. It was usually a low paying job because money was limited during the American Revolution. There are very few jobs that a boy (not a man) can get during the American Revolution. One of the only jobs a boy could get is a place in the war. As in, they’d be participating in the Revolutionary War. One thing that girls did during the American Revolution is staying at home learning proper etiquette. They’d usually learn this from their mother. If they were in a household where slaves were treated respectably and knew how to read and write, (for example, how Miss Mary Finch treated Isabel and her family in the book Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson) then sometimes an elderly house slave would teach her while her mom is gone. Sometimes when a family doesn’t own a slave they stay home and clean, usually. It was very rare for a girl to have a proper education in this period of time. Girls were not allowed in in grammar school or college, but most girls still knew how to read and write. I a girl waned to have an education whatsoever she would have to attend a homeschooled education. Homeschooled girls were not educated at the same level the boys that went to school were. The girls were taught religion too, but, hey were only taught simple math and simple English. They weren’t really taught anything complicated. Lastly, a common job that a boy would get during the American Revolution is going into the Revolutionary War. Though most of the men fighting in the war were from the ages 8 to 50 or 60, there were boys that were 12 at the youngest. The actually had a pretty important job in the war. Most of the 12, 13, and 14 year olds were â€Å"drummer boys†. The drummer boys made â€Å"field music† for the soldiers. The drums were an important means of conveying orders to the soldiers on the battlefield. Some children were â€Å"powder monkeys†. â€Å"Powder moneys† are the people whose job was to run and carry powder charges from the lower ship below the waterline to the gun crews shooting the cannons during the battles. The older kids (about 15 or 16) went out to sea as midshipmen. A midshipman is a navel cadet. As you can see, children weren’t handed that many opportunities during this period of time. There weren’t children out playing with their friends, going to the movies, etc. They were very limited to what they could do. Boys could, really, only go to school or get a job. Girls just stayed home and rarely go a proper education. Also, boys could join he war. The child life during the American Revolution was very limited.

Brief Biography of John Steinbeck Essay -- John Steinbeck Writers Amer

Brief Biography of John Steinbeck John Steinbeck lead a life filled with words, from his award winning novels to the hundreds letters he wrote to friends during his career. He was born in Salinas, California on February 27, 1902, and lived there for the first sixteen years of his life until he graduated from Salinas High School in 1918. He took classes at Stanford, but spent more of his college years working to pay tuition than then he spent in the classroom. 1924 brought his first publication, two short stories in the Standford Spectator, but in 1925 he left his schooling and went to New York for a time. By 1926, he was back in California and his first book, Cup of Gold, was published the year the of great stock market crash, but had little success. In 1930, he married Carol Henning, and the two lived in Pacific Grove, CA for the next several years. These years were lean; Steinbeck was having trouble selling his work, even with the help of his literary agents, McIntosh and Otis. Often, selling a short story for 50$ or so was the difference between eating or not. In 1937, though, Steinbeck got his first taste of real success. Now living in Los Gatos, California, he had four novels and a play published in just three years. He burst onto the literary scene with Of Mice and Men, and published the first three parts of The Red Pony the same year. The play of Of Mice and Men went on stage and won the Drama Critics' Circle Award. The next year, he published The Long Valley and the last part of The Red Pony. His big project for the year, however, was working and researching a great novel, to be published in 1939 under the title The Grapes of Wrath. With this book, Steinbeck insured his future in the literary world. The book was so controversial that Steinbeck had to worry about attempts on his life or reputation; even now, it (along with Of Mice and Men) often are found on lists of commonly banned books. It was so well thought of that it earned him a Pulitzer Prize. It was so influential that President Franklin D. Roosevlet met with Steinbeck persona lly after a letter to the President from Steinbeck about the German influence in Mexico. Steinbeck had been in Mexico working on a film, and throughout the rest of his life, motion pictures were a second medium for him. The film of Of Mice and Men was released in 1939, and the film of The Grapes of Wrath came out ... ... n7 p4(6). Kelly, Dusty. "The Kurt Vonnegut Artificial Family Utopia." World Wide Web Page http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/5885/ Mack, Arien ed. Home: A Place in the World. New York: New York University Press, 1993. Morrow, Jeff. Personal Interview. April 23, 1998. Noble, Donald R. ed. The Steinbeck Question: New Essays in Criticism. Troy, New York, 1993. Pipher, Mary. Reviving Ophelia. New York: Ballantine Books, 1994. Reed, Peter J. and Marc Leeds eds. The Vonnegut Chronicles: Interviews and Essays. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996. Steinbeck, John. A Life in Letters. New York: Penguin Books, 1969. Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Penguin Books, 1930. Swerdlow, Amy, et al. Families in Flux. New York: The Feminist Press,1989. Timmerman, John H. John Steinbeck's Fiction: The Aesthetics of the Road Taken. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986. Vonnegut, Kurt. Slapstick. New York: Dell Publishing, 1976. Weiten, Wayne. Psychology: Themes and Variations, Third Edition. Pacific Grove: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1997. Wyatt, David ed. New Essays on The Grapes of Wrath. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Educational Problems in Egypt Essay

Egypt has the most significant educational system in the (MENA); Middle East and North Africa according to the Human Development Index (HDI). Although the educational system had been developing hastily since the beginning of the 1990s, Egypt had been continuously facing serious and accumulated problems in education. An exploding population, an increasing poverty, low literacy rates, drastic injustice in schools qualities; schools in urban areas where the rich can pay for education are better than other schools in different areas, Low teaching salaries and inconsistent funding for the educational system by the government, all led to a decreasing educational quality mainly in the most essential and indispensable part of the educational system which is basic education, also it led many teachers to the road of private tutoring for extra income. Moreover, memorization rather than critical thinking was unwillingly encouraged through physical punishment in schools and homes. For countless Egyptian children fragmented information was the result and that was never considered real knowledge. Yet again as a product of these causes, more and more escalating numbers of graduates are found unemployed. Egypt will continue to face an educational crisis, as lack of well trained teachers, effective schools and developed educational equipment unless a much better financial commitment is made by the government. This essay will first demonstrate the main causes of the educational problem, examine the effects of these problems on the society, discuss and analyze the previously proposed solutions and finally enlighten a solution that will most likely work in our Egyptian society.

Advanced Electrolyte System Essay

BENEFITS 1.Replenish fluid losses 2.It helps in sustaining mental and physical performance PROMISE â€Å"complete sports drinks† REASON TO BELIEVE 1.It has 15 g of Carbohydrates which is the body’s main source of energy. It is also primary fuel source for muscles which are working at a moderate to high intensity and prolonged endurance. 2.It has sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium which replenish the electrolytes commonly lost through sweat. Electrolytes regulate body’s water and blood pH level. UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION To male and female that are active in sports. It is designed to balance the body fluids to give fast hydration and energy. It has Electrolytes (sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium) and Carbohydrates which is effective and ideal in maintaining performance in sports. Go for the Complete Sports Drink. They are designed to effectively replace the fluids and minerals that are lost by sweating. They also provide a boost of carbohydrates (fuel) and help to sustain physical performance. New POWERADE ION4 ® helps replenish fluid losses and the four key electrolytes in the same ratio typically lost in sweat: sodium, potassium, calcium andmagnesium. It also contains carbohydrates at 15 calories per 100mL. POWERADE ION4 ® encourages the body to absorb fluid and maintain fluid balance. Carbohydrates are replaced as well, supplying your working muscles with fuel, helping you sustain mental and physical performance as you exercise. To help you fight off dehydration, POWERADE ION4 ®doesn’t switch your thirst receptors off prematurely. It keeps you feeling thirsty until you’re properly rehydrated. When sweating, the body loses more than just water. It loses these electrolytes which are important in exercise. The importance of each was reviewed by The American College of Sports Medicine, American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada and it was learned that: Sodium is a critical electrolyte, which helps you sweat effectively and aids in muscle contraction; Potassium, on the other hand, is important in the overall energy metabolism; Third of the four key ions is calcium, which essential for overall bone metabolism; Lastly, magnesium plays a vital role in regulating cardiovascular and neuromuscular functions to sustain your performance. Drinking Powerade Ion4, completely packed with these four vital ions, is the most effective way to replace fluid and fuel losses. mountain Blast, Orange Burst and Silver Charge.

Divergent Evolution

Divergent Evolution The definition of evolution is a change in a population of a species over time. There are many different ways that evolution can happen in a population including both artificial selection and natural selection. The evolutionary path a species takes can also differ depending on the environment and other biological factors. One of these paths of macroevolution is called divergent evolution. In divergent evolution, a single species interbreeds, either through natural means or artificially chosen traits and selective breeding, and then that species begins to branch off and become a different species. Over time as the two new different species continues to evolve, they become less and less similar. In other words, they have diverged. Divergent evolution is a type of macroevolution that creates more diversity in species in the biosphere. Catalysts Sometimes, divergent evolution occurs through chance happenings over time. Other cases of divergent evolution become necessary for survival in a changing environment. Some circumstances that can drive divergent evolution include natural disasters like volcanoes, weather phenomena, the spread of disease, or an overall climate change in an area in which the species lives. These changes make it necessary for the species to adapt and change in order to survive. Natural selection will select the trait that is more beneficial for the species survival. Adaptive Radiation The term adaptive radiation is also sometimes used interchangeably with divergent evolution. However, most science textbooks agree that adaptive radiation is focused more on the microevolution of a rapidly reproducing population. Adaptive radiation may lead to divergent evolution over time as the new species become less similar, or diverge, in different directions on the tree of life. While it is a very fast type of speciation, divergent evolution generally takes more time. Once a species has diverged via adaptive radiation or another microevolutionary process, divergent evolution will occur more quickly if there is some sort of physical barrier or a reproductive or biological difference that keeps the populations from interbreeding once again. Over time, significant differences and adaptations can add up and make it impossible for the populations to ever interbreed again. This may be caused by a change in chromosome number or as simple as incompatible reproduction cycles. An example of adaptive radiation that led to divergent evolution is Charles Darwins finches. Even though their overall appearances seemed to be similar and were clearly descendants of the same common ancestor, they did have different beak shapes and were no longer able to interbreed in nature. This lack of interbreeding and the different niches the finches had filled on the Galapagos Islands led the populations to become less and less similar over time. Forelimbs Perhaps an even more illustrative example of divergent evolution in the history of life on Earth is the forelimbs of mammals. Even though whales, cats, humans, and bats all are very different morphologically and in the niches they fill in their environments, the bones of the forelimbs of these different species are a great example of divergent evolution. Whales, cats, humans, and bats clearly cannot interbreed and are very different species, but the similar bone structure in the forelimbs indicate they once diverged from a common ancestor. Mammals are an example of divergent evolution because they became very dissimilar over a long period of time, yet still retain similar structures that indicate they are related somewhere on the tree of life. The diversity of species on Earth has increased over time, not counting the periods in the history of life where mass extinctions occurred. This is, in part, a direct result of adaptive radiation and also divergent evolution. Divergent evolution continues to work on the current species on Earth and leading to even more macroevolution and speciation.

How to Write the Columbia University Essays 2017-2018

Columbia University is one of the world’s leading research institutions and one of the best universities in the country. Originally founded as King’s College in 1754, today Columbia attracts top-performing students from all around the globe with its combination of a world-class academic program and its location in the social and cultural hub of New York City. With such a great academic experience comes high interest, limited space, and an increasingly difficult path to an acceptance letter. For its class of 2021, Columbia admitted a mere 5.8% of its applicants. As a result, competitive applicants will need to write extremely compelling essays in order to stand out in the admissions process. When applying to Columbia, you will submit either the Common App or the Coalition Application, each of which includes a general 650-word essay. For more advice on how to craft a stellar response to the 2017-2018 Common App and Coalition essay prompts, see ’s guides on the   Common App Essays and the Coalition Essays . In addition to the general essays from the Common App and Coalition Applications, Columbia has four â€Å"essay† questions that they want you to answer for their school in particular. These essays can be broken into two groups: Luckily for you, is here to help. In order to give you the best shot possible for the class of 2022, we’ll be offering you plenty of practical suggestions for how to navigate this year’s supplemental essays. We’ll also be adding a few suggestions on how you might try something a little bit more adventurous in your writing to stand out from the crowd. This prompt is asking you for a list — no snappy introductions or grandiose concluding statements. But keep in mind that even when you are writing a list, you are still telling a story. The items you put at the beginning and the end of the list matter, and there is room for humor and dramatic effect. Let’s handle the formatting first. You can organize your list by using periods to separate different words and phrases. A bare-bones response to this question might start out something like this: Exciting. Something unexpected. Being in awe of my peers and constantly learning from them. Studying with the top researchers in the field of biology. Doing interdisciplinary work that addresses real-world issues. Always being exposed to new ideas. Inspiring and uplifting. You get the idea. But, as you read this sample response, you may get the sense that it is extremely broad (sort of like Columbia’s mission statement ). Large institutions have to use vague statements of general purpose because they need to represent a huge body of interests without stirring up controversy. But you are just one person, peculiar in your own interests and passions. And Columbia wants to see that person. Once you get past the mission statements written by committees of administrators and into the classes, the books, the late-night poetry readings, the frantic scribbling at the end of a linear algebra midterm†¦ then Columbia becomes an interesting and lively place.    The key to writing a compelling answer to this question is to recognize that you are not just describing your ideal college community but also yourself and how you hope to interact with that community. Maybe you want a community that â€Å"welcomes a small-town entomologist into the big city,† or maybe you want a community â€Å"full of hands with paper cuts from thumbing through The Critique of Pure Reason. † Your answer to this question can be part personal essay and part aspirational statement about what you want your college to look like. First, it helps to have an expansive sense of what the word â€Å"community† might mean. It can refer to your friends, your professors, your classmates, but also your TAs, the people who clean and serve food on the campus, the musicians who play on New York Subway. Maybe you want a college campus that is â€Å"loud with the sound of the city,† but where the libraries â€Å"are quiet with the frantic intensity of thought.† As you write, try to avoid vague buzzwords like â€Å" innovation ,† and hackneyed phrases like â€Å"cultivates leadership ,† and â€Å"values sustainability .† These words may sound fancy, but if they already appear in the promotional materials for every college and university that you are applying to, then chances are your admissions officers are already tired of hearing them. Instead of a college community that â€Å"values sustainability,† maybe you want a college community that is â€Å"doing everything it can to fight global warming.† Instead of a college community that â€Å"cultivates leadership,† maybe you want a college community that â€Å"asks me to listen, intently and respectfully to those with which I disagree, even if they don’t believe in climate change.† Don’t be afraid to offer a list that speaks to your own values, where each item contributes to a narrative about you that is bigger than the sum of its parts. Finally, if you really want to go out on a limb, you might recognize that a list can also be a poem. Maybe you want a community â€Å"that reaches beyond the ivory tower, that turns around to speak truth to power.† That rhyme is a little clammy. You can probably do better, and we encourage you to try. You might suspect that this part of the application has some kind of hidden trap. If you do not list a certain work or publication, does that rule you out? Is there anything they are looking for specifically? The answer to both of these questions is no. For this segment, honesty is key. The admissions committees are looking to understand who you are through your interests. It is true that Columbia is looking for some degree of sophistication. But don’t let this discourage you: Not everyone reads Aristotle for fun! Moreover, even if you spend some time reading Archie Comics , you can have an intricate reading of those too! The sophistication of your chosen reading material does not necessarily reflect the sophistication of your reading practice. As a general rule, you should make sure that your reading list reflects a high school reading level, even if it has a few more eclectic, â€Å"fun† titles thrown into the mix.    Across these lists, you also have the opportunity to show you are intellectually curious and interested in subjects beyond your chosen area of study. Because Columbia offers its students a liberal arts education, neuroscience majors may find themselves in a discussion about Gertrude Stein (they might even learn that the poet of â€Å"A rose is a rose is a rose† was herself quite dedicated to the modern study of physiology and cognition). If you are applying as a STEM major, you might include some of your favorite novels, whether it be the early nineteenth-century study of manners in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice or the eco-utopian science fiction of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars Trilogy . On the other hand, if you are applying as an English major, you might demonstrate your interests in the narratives that live outside of literary texts by including some of your favorite works on science, politics, and economics. After all, Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century begins with an analysis of â€Å"property† in Jane Austen, and Naomi Klein’s analysis of the politics of climate change in This Changes Everything quotes Robinson’s novels. In all of these lists, the most important thing is to remain true to yourself; don’t make things up for the purposes of sounding fancy. A world where everyone has read the same few â€Å"important† books would be a very boring world indeed. No special tricks here. These works should be directly from your literature class’s syllabus: just list the titles of your favorite required works from the year. Unless they are relatively unknown, there is no need to include the author’s name. If you are an international student, use this opportunity to showcase titles that might not normally appear in an American high school curriculum. Make sure to use the translated titles into English. We recommend a minimum of three or four works and a maximum of about ten works. Remember that these can be both fiction and non-fiction; ideally, your list will offer a mixture of both. The fiction works should not be from your school courses, even if you did not list them on the first part of this supplement. As with the previous question, you should give a minimum of four texts and a maximum of ten. The point here is not to give an exhaustive list of your reading, but rather to give the admissions officers a sense of your interests. In terms of works that would be inappropriate to list, remember that these are books you’ve read within the last year. Maybe you feel like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was an important novel to your childhood and shaped you as an individual, but unfortunately, Columbia is only looking for more recent reads. But, if you reread an important text every year, feel free to include it. After all, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts reportedly rereads Samuel Johnson’s â€Å"The Vanity of Human Wishes† every year . Feel free to include texts from any genre, even comic books. Some graphic novels, like Emil Ferris’ My Favorite Thing is Monsters are modern classics that tackle tough issues, like racial tensions in Chicago, the beauty of Fuseli’s The Nightmare , and the long history of Nazi Germany. The most important thing to remember is that these are books you have discovered, read, and enjoyed within at most the past year. They should reflect who you are at the moment! As a formatting note: If you read these titles in a language other than English, feel free to make a small note in parenthesis after each title noting this, for example, Les Misà ©rables (read in French). Submit your essay and we’ll get back to you with helpful edits. There is no need to make a distinction between â€Å"print† and â€Å"electronic,† as most publications are currently available online. Unlike other sections where it is useful to have a mix of answers, hunting down different publications that are solely online or solely print is completely unnecessary. Examples of appropriate publications can include but should not be limited to: The New York Times , The Economist , Astronomy Magazine , International Journal of Psychology , American Anthropologist , etc. Don’t forget that scientific, economic, and social sciences journals count as publications! At the same time, it’s perfectly fine some on your list are not that â€Å"sophisticated.† Even sites like Buzzfeed, which by some are not considered extremely serious news sources, can add value to your application if you feel their content is representative of your interests. One final note: These days, there are a lot of â€Å"news† outlets that do not conform to the traditional standards of journalistic integrity . Alex Jones’s InfoWars comes to mind as a prominent example. If you visit and read from sites like this, it is, of course, up to your discretion whether or not you include them on your list. One argument for including a site like InfoWars might be that you read it, not for â€Å"information,† but rather to study the media that millions of Americans read and watch every day, for better or worse. If you are interested in journalism or media criticism, you might write a very compelling response to the fourth essay prompt below that asks you to talk about your intended field of study. You might start that essay by saying: â€Å"You might have been surprised to see The Daily Stormer listed alongside the New York Times in the list of publications that I regularly read above. I included that site because I have long followed the work of the Southern Poverty Law Center , and I am interested in studying how white supremacist ideas spread in our modern media ecology.† (Indeed, the Columbia Journalism school just so happens to be doing a lot of work on exactly this issue.) This category is the most general, meant as an opportunity to showcase what you do when you are not reading. This can include anything from big music concerts to theatre performances to museum exhibits. You can even list video games (there is a rapidly growing world of philosophically and emotionally sophisticated games, like That Dragon, Cancer , that are worthy of study alongside any other work of literature). You can also use this category to display your interest in international issues. Maybe you attended an exhibition on the art of climate change in Beijing or were captivated by Gianfranco Rosi’s Fire at Sea . Maybe you are a regular reader of the trendsetting African literary blog Brittlepaper . But what if you haven’t done lots of fancy travel? What if you don’t live in a big city with lots of fancy museums? Even small local events are worth listing here if you got something out of them. There is no reason why you should be shy about including a local theater production, a community dance competition, or an exhibit from a local artist. Showing that you are aware of the various forms of art and life that flourish outside the circuit of Guggenheim Fellowships and Booker Prizes can add an important dimension to your application. In this essay, the admissions officers want to know why you want to attend Columbia in particular. Not just because it is a big fancy school with brand recognition, but because you are attracted to the specific courses Columbia offers, the ways it trains its students, and social and cultural institutions that surround it in New York City. Columbia wants to know that you have taken some time to research what they have to offer. Before you can write a compelling answer to this question, you will need to dig deep on their website. For this essay, generic kiss-up praise for Columbia’s â€Å"high-quality academic curriculum, outstanding professors, and talented students† is not going to cut it. Anyone can write that. You should also try to reach beyond patinas to the things that Columbia touts in its promotional materials. Everyone who is applying to this school knows that Columbia is â€Å"famous† for being located in New York city, for having all of its students take a â€Å" Core † curriculum, and for emphasizing academics over athletics. The admissions officers’ eyes probably glaze over a little bit every time they hear a student parroting back to them a line like this: â€Å" I am excited to take Contemporary Civilization and join into the tradition of students who have, since 1919, assembled to discuss important works of moral and political thought from Plato to the present .† A good response to this prompt starts with the recognition that it is not just asking you to tell what is â€Å"valuable† about Columbia itself. They are asking you to talk about how the values and commitments that make you a distinctive and interesting person are related to the dazzling array of opportunities that Columbia has to offer. You want to share something that is specific about yourself and pair it with something equally distinctive about the university. Maybe members of your community have recently been deported, and you are especially interested in the work that Columbia’s School of Journalism has done reporting on that issue. Maybe your interest in mathematics and computer science led you to start reading up on automata theory , and you are excited to attend the Math department’s Samuel Eilenberg Lectures — a series named for a former Columbia professor who made great contributions to that field. As you do your web search to try and find out how your interests intersect with Columbia, the more specific you get, the better. Columbia is a massive institution, and there is a lot happening there — much of which your admissions officers might not even know about! If you can teach them something about their own institution, then you are more likely to capture their attention. Another thing that makes Columbia distinctive is not just the work that happens within its walls, but also its location in New York City. Maybe you are excited to take an Art History class where you can go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and see â€Å" The Death of Socrates † in person while reading The Phaedo . Maybe you are interested in the socioeconomic issues associated with gentrification , and want to study first hand the classic case of Brooklyn. As you write this essay you should not be afraid to talk about how your interest in Columbia lies in how that institution is related to the urban environment that surrounds it. Note: This final question differs slightly between applicants to Columbia College or to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. For applicants to SEAS, there is no option to apply as undecided, so the second sentence is omitted from this prompt. The admissions committee is interested in knowing what you find fascinating about your field and what you have done to broaden that interest. They are trying to weed out people who are applying for a given major just because it sounds fancy. But, more than that, they also want to see what makes you tick, how your passion for learning carries you beyond your high school classes, and what keeps you up at night in a fever pitch of wonder and excitement. You want to find the best, and most concise, way to showcase your passion. 300 words are a lot fewer than you would think! At , we have broken down the â€Å"Why Major?† essay into two main questions: Your essay should seek to address both of these questions with as high a degree of specificity as possible. Because this essay is so short, it is difficult to address a general field. You cannot fully explain your love of a subject with a mere 300 words. â€Å"I love astronomy† is not sufficient. Instead, you could write more specifically about your interest in exoplanets and astrobiology. Include a personal story about stargazing as a child that sparked your love of the field and mention scientific research completed in high school that further cultivated your interest in the stars. It’s also possible that you are still figuring out what you want to study. No intellectually curious seventeen-year-old is ever certain about the topics and disciplines that will drive their future studies. One way to communicate your interest and your desire to continue exploring a given topic is to talk about a recent conversation you had with someone who is already immersed in a field that you are curious about. An essay might begin: â€Å"Ever since my high school teacher combined potassium permanganate and glycerol and set his lab coat on fire, I’ve been fascinated with the chemical property of flammability. In order to learn more, I reached out to John McJohnson, a graduate student studying autoignition temperatures at the University of California, Davis. What most excited me about our conversation was†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Of course, in order to write this essay, you need to actually have a conversation with someone who is working in that field. If you live in a town that has a research university, and if you are considering majoring in chemistry, you can actually go to the chemistry department’s university website, find a professor or graduate student whose work looks interesting to you, and send them an email asking to meet for coffee. This may seem intimidating, but we can assure you that there are lots of researchers who might be willing to take 30 minutes out of their day to talk with a young person about their work. You might not get a response (most of these people are very busy), but the sooner you get used to reaching out to potential future colleagues and making connections, the better off you’ll be. No matter what approach you take to this question, you’ll want to be sure to avoid cramming in too much jargon in an effort to communicate your technical mastery. You only have 300 words, and the point of this essay is not to dazzle your reader but rather to show what practical steps you’ve taken to explore and develop your intellectual interests.   However, you choose to write your essays, dare to be a little creative. Don’t just describe the university that the Columbia admissions officers already know. Ideally, they will see their campus a little bit differently after having read what you imagine it might be to you. As Columbia’s website says, they are looking for students who â€Å"will take greatest advantage of the unique Columbia experience and will offer something meaningful in return to the community.† The advice we’ve offered in this article is only a sampling of what we try to do with our clients at . If you want help on your Columbia application and essays, check out our College Apps Program and our Essay Editing Program .